Source: Washington Wire - WSJ:
September 25, 2012, 2:41 PM
By Jared A. Favole
- European Pressphoto Agency
- President Barack Obama speaks during the 2012 Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting at the Sheraton Hotel in New York, Sept. 25, 2012.
President Barack Obama on Tuesday said human trafficking is a barbaric “debasement” to humanity as he detailed new steps the U.S. government is taking to fight groups that engage in it.
“I’m talking about the injustice, the outrage of human trafficking, which must be called by its true name: modern slavery,” Mr. Obama said while speaking to the Clinton Global Initiative Tuesday afternoon. “Now I don’t use that word ‘slavery’ lightly. It evokes obviously one of the most painful chapters of our nation’s history. But around the world there’s no denying the awful reality.”
Mr. Obama said he signed an executive order to combat human trafficking that, among other things, prohibits federal contractors from engaging in trafficking-related activities including misleading or fraudulent recruitment practices. His speech followed that of his Republican rival for the White House, Mitt Romney, who advocated for tailoring U.S. aid abroad to spur private development.
“A temporary aid package can give an economy a boost,” Mr. Romney said in his speech to the Clinton Global Initiative Tuesday morning. “But it can’t sustain an economy–not for the long term.”
Mr. Obama said human trafficking, be it of women sold as sex slaves or men forced into labor, is “evil” and has “no place in a civilized world.”
He said the U.S. will continue to shine a light on human trafficking and said with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the country is calling out nations that don’t do enough to combat human trafficking.
He said for all the progress the U.S. has made, “the bitter truth is that trafficking also goes on right here in the United States.”
He added, “It’s the migrant worker unable to pay off the debt to his trafficker. It’s the man lured here with the promise of a job, his documents then taken and forced to work endless hours in a kitchen; the teenage girls forced to walk the streets. This should not be happening in the United States of America.”
Mr. Obama said for the first time American’s annual trafficking report includes details about trafficking in the United States. (See the report here.) The report, released in June, estimates that as many as 27 million people world-wide are victims of human trafficking.
Mr. Obama was introduced by former President Bill Clinton, who has helped the president’s re-election campaign. Mr. Clinton, who had shared the stage earlier in the day with Mr. Romney, praised Mr. Obama for coming to the program each year since he’s been president.
“He basically started his life as an NGO,” Mr. Clinton said, referring to Mr. Obama’s days as a community organizer. Mr. Clinton added, “then he picked a Secretary of State who is a walking NGO.”
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